Sabbath With the Missionaries

As I've alluded to in a few posts, there are some Seventh-day Adventist missionaries living in Khon Kaen that I made contact with before leaving the US.  They have been awesome and unbeknownst to them, were actually instrumental in me following through with this rotation and even coming to Thailand!

It's not that I didn't want to do this rotation, as much as I was fearful of the language barrier, the travel involved to get here, and being alone.  I was praying about what to do and it occurred to me that I should probably look and see where the Adventist missionaries in Thailand were living.

I've been a supporter of Adventist Frontier Missions ever since my sister was a missionary in Palau in 2002 (wow, that was a long time ago...). And for the past several years, I've been supporting the Greenfield family in Cambodia. I get postcard and letter updates and I used to put them up on my fridge (before I had a fancy stainless steel fridge that does not allow for such things). When Jamie and I started dating, he used to read the missionary updates and if there weren't any new ones, he'd ask, "Hey, what are the missionaries up to?" Truthfully, the AFM monthly magazine was, and continues to be, my favorite piece of mail.

(OK, fine. I'm downplaying. I'm mildly obsessed with AFM. For those of us for whom long-term missionary service is not an option, the ability to live vicariously and provide financial support to career missionaries is amazing.)

So...the missionaries. I sent AFM a message through their website and when they didn't respond immediately, I started stalking them on Twitter. For some reason, I didn't realize that there was more than one missionary family here, so I asked specifically to make contact with the Palacioses. Regardless, I did not go wrong. Ricardo and Alicia Palacios have been wonderful and last week, they spent time taking multiple trips to Tesco, helping me buy a Thai cell phone, taking me to their favorite vegetarian restaurant, and picking me up for Friday night worship and Sabbath church service.

The one thing that is amazing about the Seventh-day Adventist Church is that it has a very strong international presence. There is not a single place that I have been to that I have not been able to find a church. And, once you find it, the people are always warm and welcoming. Truly, you cannot go anywhere in the world and not find that you have an Adventist family willing to look out for you. (True story: When Jamie and I are traveling, he likes to challenge me that there will not be an Adventist church in the towns we are passing through. We have yet to play this game in a place where there is NOT an Adventist church. I always win that game!)

When I found out that the Palacioses were living in the VERY CITY where I was going to be, I was thrilled. I decided at pretty much that very moment that I'd be OK. I think I booked my ticket to Thailand a few days later, before I had even made contact with Alicia.

This past week, I joined the Palacios family for Friday night worship and realized that in addition to them, there are two other missionary families, another career missionary--Daniella, two student missionaries, and three friends of the Palacios family who moved here from Ecuador to help with their music school! That's a lot of people!

We had a really nice Friday worship and on Sabbath morning, Alicia picked me up for church. The church service is conducted at Peace Music Academy, the music school that Ricardo and Alicia run in Khon Kaen. All of the missionary kids are, not surprisingly, very musical. Here they are playing:

It was communion Sabbath this week, so we had the traditional foot washing before taking communion. This is Nok--who got married in January!--having her first foot washing with Daniella. The Sorenson family wrote about Nok's wedding (the first in Khon Kaen church) in their latest blog.

Ricardo Palacios and the pastor of the Khon Kaen church prepare to distribute the communion bread:

And this is Breanna, a student missionary from Southern Adventist University, who also teaches violin here in Thailand:

After church, there was lunch. As usual, Adventist potluck did not disappoint. Plus! More vegetarian food! As previously mentioned, there have been many mystery meals presented to me at the hospital. Usually, I ask, "What is this?" and another doctor responds, "Hmm, I don't know" and then I pray and eat it anyway because...starvation (and 1 Corinthians 10:27).

Why yes, I did take enough noodles for them to be spilling out of their designated spot on the tray. STOP JUDGING ME.

After lunch, we drove about 45 min-1 hour outside of Khon Kaen and we hiked up a local mountain.

OK, something you should know about the missionaries? They are outdoorsy. Like, let their kids climb natural vines between rocks and set up their own rappel lines OUTDOORSY.

Want to know who is NOT outdoorsy? This city girl. I only rappel when I'm harnessed in by a licensed and insured company (that I can sue later), thank you very much. And, I did it already in Mexico! That's it! The bucket list item has been crossed off! I don't need to repeatedly endanger my life. (I kid, of course.)

But for real, I grew up in South Florida where we don't have mountains or rock climbing and you can be sure that my parents would never have let me do this:

That's Ricardo in the dark blue shirt watching his son, Gabe, like no big deal. Also, look at where Chris Sorensen is standing! Too close to the edge, Chris. TOO CLOSE.

This is an American teaching English in Khon Kaen who we met on the trail. The Sorensens invited her to rappel, which she did. Basically, this picture shows, in a nutshell, why God has not called me to be a missionary.

Umm...yeah. It was hard enough to stand in a position to take this picture, much less think about doing this myself.

Listen, it's not my fault that I am a very safety-oriented person. I can't help but watch these things and think, "Good heavens, please don't let anyone fall, because I am the only medical professional here and I DIDN'T TAKE THE WILDERNESS MEDICINE ELECTIVE."

Thankfully, everyone was fine and we stayed on the rock until after sunset, so that we could have worship. (Again, the safety-oriented doctor was tachycardic during worship, thinking about getting off of the rock after dark...) But! We saw a lunar eclipse happen from the top of the rock! How amazing is that!

All in all, such a wonderful day. Now, go be a fellow groupie and contribute to AFM and you'll get the magazine with updates too!